


Short Stack

by liptonrm



Category: Band of Brothers, Falling Skies, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Supernatural, The X-Files
Genre: Academy Era, Aliens, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Body Horror, Cowboy Dean, Gen, Hippie Castiel, Human Anna, Human Castiel, Men of Letters, Multi, Post-Apocalypse, Pre-Series, Rule 63, Stanford Era, Starfleet Academy, Werewolves, Women of Supernatural
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-07 11:39:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1119393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liptonrm/pseuds/liptonrm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An archive for my homeless ficlets and poor, orphaned stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dean Winchester--Werewolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wolves howled in the dark.

Wolves howled in the dark.

Dean’s heart lurched and sped up. His own breath grated in his ears. The dark of the cabin pressed in on him, made every breath a struggle. He wanted out. He wanted to run. He never wanted to stop.

The chain clanked when he moved. He’d done what he could to secure himself, to make everything safe: shackles and handcuffs, a chain hitched to a post driven deep into the concrete foundation. He didn’t want to hurt anyone.

He should have called Dad or Jim or Bobby or, hell, even Sammy far away at school. But he knew what their answer would be. He could see Dad’s face, the sorrow, the anger, the disappointment, as he pointed his gun straight at Dean’s chest.

Dean didn’t want to hurt anyone but, oh god, he wasn’t ready to die.

The alarm in his watch went off and he knew what that meant. Show time.

Between one breath and the next the pain started. It began as the dull ache of growing pains and a feeling of tight claustrophobia, as if his body couldn’t contain him. Dean panted through his teeth, eyes narrowed to slits, as it got worse. He could do this, could control the pain, he’d been doing it all his life.

His hip joints snapped and Dean screamed. Oh god it hurt. The echo of _please, please, please_ circled in his mind as he howled. He needed it to stop, oh fuck, oh please, _please god make it stop_.

Dean’s spine cracked, loud over his screams, and his world went black.


	2. Leonard McCoy--Starfleet Academy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesus Christ, Leonard was surrounded by children.

Jesus Christ, Leonard was surrounded by children.

He stared around the crowded room, a sea of bright young faces, spit-shined and wet behind the ears. They were too damn eager to be in a seminar at ass o’clock in the morning. The excited buzz of their conversation was starting to give him a goddamn headache.

“Intro to Xeno-Biology my ass,” he muttered to himself as he sat, oblivious to the way his fellow cadets edged away from him. He was here to get through, not make nice. Goddamn mandatory classes on subjects he already knew better than most professors, surrounded by excited kids who hadn’t been worn down, yet, by the universe.

He was too sober to deal with this bullshit.

He grit his teeth as his temples pulsed. The professor walked out and set her materials down on the podium at the front of the room. Conversations trailed to a close and Leonard pulled out his PADD, old-fashioned stylus in hand. He had made his bed and he was damn well going to lie in it and show these infants a thing or two while he was at it.

He’d show them all what it really meant to be a doctor.


	3. Josie Sands--Before Abaddon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josie was a legacy.

Josie was a legacy. 

Her family had been deep into the Men of Letters tradition for generations upon generations. She could trace her great-great and even greater grandfathers in the oldest learning texts. She had been raised knowing her family’s duty, their great heritage and the sacrifices their special knowledge entailed. As a child she sat, with her brothers, at her father’s knee and learned the secrets of the universe. She never wanted to do anything else.

But there came a time of locked doors and closed books, when her brothers were privy to secrets that they wouldn’t let her share. They told her that she was special, that the next generation depended on her, but they wouldn’t let her in. Even during the war when so much was lost, the strength of her generation silenced, a woman’s voice was too dangerous to include in their most sacred rituals. She was worth any of those old men, more than worth, but a woman’s place was not with them.

 _You’re a part of us_ , they said as she started little Henry Winchester down the path, hardly more than a child herself. _We need you_ , they promised. But the doors were still locked and they wouldn’t let her in.


	4. Band of Brothers/Falling Skies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Band of Brothers/Falling Skies fusion that I'll never finish. But it's still awesome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the men are now women because that many dicks on the dance floor just isn't realistic.

Dick Winters stared out at the Chicago skyline. Somewhere, far ahead of him, the serrated layers of the Sears Tower reached toward the clouds. Beyond the city’s skyscrapers loomed the hulking alien base ship, dwarfing one of humanity’s greatest engineering achievements. Lights swooped around the base’s upper layers, aircraft sweeping through Earth’s skies, unstopped by anything they’d been able to throw. Dick watched the sky and thought about everything they had lost.

Familiar boot steps crunched through stones on the roof behind him. Nix came up and stood to Dick’s left, his eyes caught by the far-off view.

“Any problems?” Dick asked, voice crisp. They’d ventured into the once-crowded downtown area, empty streets littered with wrecked cars and fallen debris. They needed supplies—food and medicine and anything else they could find that might be useful—badly enough that the trip was worth the high risk. Evading the alien invaders was pointless if they all died of starvation anyway.

“Nah,” Nix drawled. “Perco and Luz are loading up the truck. Decent haul, we tripped over a sporting goods store that hadn’t been looted yet.” He grinned and lifted a glass bottle full of amber liquid gripped in his right hand. “And someone did his drinking at work.”

Dick shook his head, face not quite as stern as it could have been; he knew Nix too well. “All booze goes to the Doc, you know that.”

Nix hummed, one sardonic eyebrow raised. They both knew that the bottle would really end up in the footlocker in Nix’s bunk, buried under underwear and other ephemera. Dick was well aware of Nix’s opinions about using good liquor to sterilize needles.

A quiet moment passed between them, both of their gazes inevitably drawn back to the bulk straddling the horizon. Nix nodded toward the alien ship, “Sometimes I can’t believe it’s real. Hell, I feel like I’m looking at a goddamn movie screen.”

“It’s not a movie,” Dick replied, voice soft but firm. He turned his back on the horizon and strode over to the stairs, footsteps sharp and precise over the slates. He felt more than heard Nix follow him down.

A lot of people had thought that, back when the alien ships first arrived. You couldn’t go past one of those twenty-four hour news channels without hearing a comparison to _Independence Day_ or _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_. They’d learned the truth of it the hard way, they all had; in the movies the good guys never lost.

~~~

They pulled up to the high school’s loading dock, dust and dead leaves kicked up behind them. Gray twilight was falling as the engine clicked off. They were home.

Luz and Perco’s delivery truck pulled in after them. Perco backed up to the dock with all of the skill he hadn’t shown the first time he’d tried that maneuver. They were all getting better at this, adapting to their new lives.

A handful of Supply people spilled out of the high school’s doors, the room beyond the door carefully dim. Dick levered himself out of the SUV and moved around to pop the trunk’s hatch. It really had been a good haul; they’d scrounged enough supplies to fill up both the truck and the utility vehicle to overflowing. They made good time with the unloading, movements underscored by the Luz cracking wise. Dick pulled the last box out and clapped a hand on the shoulder of the kid who stacked it on top of an already precariously over-laden dolly. They needed to work fast, before the light gave out completely.

Inside, he found Sally Rivers crouched down, flashlight between her teeth, marking down boxes on her clipboard. For all that Dick was the one in charge, it was Sally who kept things running, who kept up on all of the unglamorous little details of day-to-day life. She was an organizing dynamo and Dick knew they’d be toast without her. Their army, as ad hoc and ramshackle as it was, still ran on its stomach.

He didn’t bother her. She and Nix would sort everything out and then let him know where the camp stood. He’d learned the hard way not to get in the middle of things.

Rhonda Speirs was waiting for him when he stepped into the hallway. She stood straight, ready to move, and move fast, if necessary. Her gaze was direct and flat, the flickering lamplight throwing shadows on her face. Her hand rested casually on the butt of the gun in her holster.

“We’ve had an increase in skitter activity,” she said, falling into step beside him. “Buck’s squad ran into a bunch of them while they were out on patrol. They took them out but Malarkey got a little dinged up in the process. Oh, and they managed to shanghai one of those harnessed kids. I’ve got him locked up in one of the basement rooms with two guards for now.”

Dick nodded. “We’ll have to see what we can do with him. The last one didn’t work out so well.”

Rhonda snorted but said nothing. The last harnessed kid had cold-cocked Bill Guarnere and almost made it out of the school before Malarkey managed to tackle her. Unfortunately, she’d died on the operating table while the Doc was trying to remove the harness. It wasn’t likely they were going to be able to do much for this new kid, either.

They pushed through the swinging doors that lead to the infirmary, what in the old days used to be a block of science rooms divided by accordion walls. Now it was big and open, flimsy walls pulled back and desks removed. A bank of sinks ran around the outside of the room with bunsen burner stations on counters that dotted the open space inside. They found Donna Malarkey sitting on one of the counters, hissing as Roe stitched closed a long gash that ran up her arm.

“You should’ve seen the other guy,” Buck joked from where he was leaning against the wall. His tone was light but his eyes flicked, concerned, over to Skip Muck who hovered behind Malarkey. He looked tense, his normally jovial face tight with anxiety.

“Good work on the skitters,” Dick said.

Buck shrugged. “Eh, we just hit them harder than they hit us.”

“Speak for yourself,” Malarkey murmured, ending on a squeak as Roe pulled another stitch through her arm.

“Big baby,” Buck joked. “You should’ve seen her, Dick. She ran right up to that thing and stuck a shotgun down its mouth. Girl’s got balls of steel.”

Dick nodded at Malarkey, a slight smile on his face. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.” He turned back to Compton. “Is the Doc around? I have some supplies for her.”

“She’s in the back, doing a check-up on Ellie.”

Dick grabbed Skip’s shoulder in passing, giving it a comforting squeeze. The man looked like he was going to pass out. He left Speirs with the troops and made his way to the curtained-off corner of the room that served as the Doc’s office, as well as a semi-private examination room. They couldn’t afford a lot of privacy anymore, but even the appearance of it could help put people at ease.

“Come on in Dick,” Leslie Thompkins’ voice called through the partition as he came up to it. He stepped around and saw Leslie with a boisterous Ella Cook in her arms, Ella’s father looking on from the chair. Leslie had an easy smile on her face, deep lines radiating out from her eyes and around her mouth. 

She handed the six-month old back to her father. “She looks good. She’s happy and healthy.” She tickled Ella’s foot and the baby wriggled and kicked. “You’re doing a good job.”

“Thanks Doc,” Tom said, relief almost erasing the dark circles under his eyes. “I just worry, you know?”

“Of course, dear.” Leslie squeezed Tom’s hand as he left. She turned to Dick as outside the doors swung shut, the face of the kindly old grandma replaced by the seasoned trauma doctor. It wasn’t a surprise that Doctor Thompkins had made it through the initial assault. She’d spent years working in a clinic in the South Side, dealing with everything that was thrown at her. Her determination alone had held her neighborhood together during the invasion, without her no one would have made it out alive. “Any problems?”

Dick smiled. “Not this time.” He reached into his pack and pulled out a bag full of pill bottles, both wholesale and personal. “We found some antibiotics in a drug store,” he said as he handed them over.

“And some stronger pills, I imagine,” she replied. She set the bag down on the counter that served as her makeshift desk and pulled an inventory out of a drawer. “If not you wouldn’t have wasted your time bringing them to me yourself.”

“I never waste my time,” he said, voice sober. Leslie threw her head back and laughed, she knew him well enough to see the humor in his eyes.

“Heaven forbid the great Richard Winters ever waste his time,” she chuckled. She shooed him on as she opened up the bag. “Off with you. Go harass someone else.”

The upward quirk of his lips followed him as he stepped out of the infirmary, and stayed with him, right up until Liebgott ran up and told him that skitters were on the way.


	5. Codename: Hotass--Supernatural/X-Files AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henricksen is a PI and Scully is a professor of forensics. Together they solve crime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a whole, epic story planned where there was a strange murder, Henricksen and Scully got involved as well as Reid, Henricksen's old partner, Dean Winchester, Reid's new partner, Sam Winchester, law school student, and Castiel, a strange criminal profiler who knows more than he lets on. Sadly, it's a story I'll never actually write. This was the beginning.

Victor Henricksen stood at the edge of the field. The space glowed under the April sun, grass only now beginning to green after the winter cold. Trees lined the river bank, some misted with new spring growth but most still barren. Victor sighed and stepped onto turf still wet from the morning's rain. He didn't want to be here, knew that it was a dead end. The trail in the Meg Masters case had been cold for almost five years. But here he was, anyway, trudging across a field, getting mud on his cuffs, all because Sandra Masters had sat on the other side of his desk, tears in her eyes, asking him to look for her little girl in this one last place.

He'd say that he was turning into a sap, that P.I. work had worn the hard-boiled son of a bitch right out of him except he knew that wasn't true. He'd always been a sucker for a bad luck case, for the people whose lives got lost between the cracks in the system. He couldn't count the number of sleepless nights he'd had running through other people's problems, other people's broken lives. Back in the bad old days, when he'd been a cop, that's what he'd relied on his partner to do, to keep him level, keep his head in the game. Now there was no one to keep him from making a damn fool of himself.

He broke through the tree line at the far edge of the field. The Huron River bubbled a few yards ahead, the water running fast, the banks overflowing from the never-ending rain. He began walking along it, well away from the bank, trusting his instincts to point him in the right direction. He didn't know exactly what he was looking for, only that he needed to find it.

Images flashed through Victor's mind, darkness and rain and blood. One second he'd be in the real world, the sun flickering over his face, and the next he'd be thrown back to that night when his world came crashing down on him. He could still feel his partner's blood thick on his hands.

Suddenly, over the rush of the river he heard branches breaking, footsteps coming up behind him. His whole body twitched and his hand jerked for thee butt of the gun he no longer regularly carried. He tried to even his breathing, to control his speeding heart. But a part of him was still stuck there in that night. He would never be free.

He spun around, muscles tense and on edge. Dana Scully stood a few feet behind him, arms raised, palms forward. “Hello Victor,” she greeted, voice deliberately light. He could see the readiness in her. She would put him down if she had to.

Tension drained out of Victor's shoulders and the past flickered away. He took a deep breath and rolled his neck, the pop of tendons an old friend. He really hated the woods. “Oh, it's you.”

“Nice to see you too,” Dana dead-panned. She glanced around, eyebrow raised. “Out for an afternoon stroll?”

“Something like that,” Victor responded, tone dry. He liked Dana, hell, she was one of the few people in the world he trusted, but he wasn't quite ready to look the fool in front of her.

Her eyebrow quirked higher. “Well, enjoy yourself. Unless, of course, you want to help me look for the missing Masters girl.”

He snorted and shook his head. He really should have guessed that they shared a common purpose. “So which member of the Masters family conned you into coming out here.”

A grin pricked at the corners of Dana's lips in response to his rueful tone. “Nikki Masters is in my Anatomy clinical.”

Victor nodded, mouth quirked. That was the thing he respected about Dana Scully, she needed the truth as badly as he did and she was willing to do anything to find it.

Together they moved further down the river, the distance between them gradually widening. Eventually Dana ended up down by the river while Victor strolled along the treeline, within spitting distance of the field's wide expanse. He was bent down, examining a piece of red fabric caught amongst the roots when her voice called him down to the river.

“Victor, come look at this!”

He stood and pushed through the undergrowth toward her voice. He found Dana crouched down, leaning slightly out over the water. She looked up, face set and serious. “I think we found it.”

Victor knelt into the wet leaves on the bank and let his line of sight follow the path marked by her outstretched finger. Below them a skeletal heel stuck out of the muck. The water bubbled around it, nature slowly exposing the hidden body.

Their eyes met. It was time to call this in.


	6. Dean and Castiel--Modern Cowboys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas in the desert with horses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This idea went through so many mutations, but it was always going to be a Dean/Cas AU. This is all I ever wrote.

The fire crackled low in the pit, sporadic flames shot up, painting the desert scrub in dark reds and oranges. The world was still, the night as black as any Dean had seen, and he’d seen more than his fair share. He settled deeper into his blankets, shotgun a reassuring presence along his side. He knew this country better than he knew his own name, which meant he wasn't stupid enough to trust to fate to see him through. In his experience a gun was the best security blanket money could buy.

The night sky stretched over him, stars brilliant and cold. That was the thing about towns, all of the people, all of those lights hid the important things. Even the stars got lost in places like that. He'd never seen anything anywhere that rivaled the show that circled over him every night out here in the dark. 

His horse whickered and Dean turned over onto his side. His legs and back were sore; he'd spent too much time in town this winter, too much energy wasted on things that hadn't mattered as much as he'd thought they had at the time. He needed to break himself back into the routine, harden himself for the coming season. No one was going to go easy on him, least of all himself.

His eyes blinked slowly towards sleep. One moment the fire glowed bright, the next only embers remained, red almost as dark as the sky. His breath slowed and the metronome beat of his heart stilled his tired mind. The world disappeared.

An immeasurable time later he jerked awake. The full moon shone over him, highlighting the desert in silver and deep, darkest blue. His heart raced, unsure of what had awakened him. He listened hard, every rustle of the wind sharp in his adrenaline-jacked ears. He could still hear Jack to his left, the lazy flick of tail hitting flesh enough to reassure him that nothing dangerous was around. Three little months of soft living had turned him into a wuss.

A throat cleared, like a whip-crack, behind him and he twisted, grabbing for the knife under his bedroll as he went. He threw himself into a crouch.

His breath caught at the sight and then he laughed, dropping himself back onto the ground, tension finally flowing out of him. “Damn, Cas. You should know better than to wake a guy up like that.” Somehow, he wasn’t even surprised that Cas had found him. The man was always turning up in the strangest places. He was like the frigging Wild Man of the Desert.

Castiel smiled in that way he had, a softening of the lines around his eyes, a stretching of his mouth. He sat cross-legged on the hard ground, his body just out of arm reach of Dean's bed. “I didn't mean to wake you.”

Dean rubbed a hand over his face and chuckled. “No, you just meant to stare at me.” Because that was the way Cas was, the way he’d always been. If he wasn’t being strange then he wasn’t being Cas. 

They sat and looked at each other for a while, comfortable under the hum of the wind and the endless expanse of the sky. “You planning on getting any sleep?” Dean finally asked, his voice strange and tinny after the silence.

“I find the wilderness to be all the rest I need.”

“I just bet you do,” Dean snorted. Because of course he did.

Cas grinned, quiet and indulgent. “You should go back to sleep. You still have miles to go.”

Dean yawned, exhaustion suddenly pressing back down on him, the last of the adrenaline slipping away. “Yeah, okay.” He turned and pulled himself back under his blankets, his mind already slowing. As sleep descended he could feel Cas behind him, the watchful presence at his back.

He thought, before all thought slipped away, that he heard Cas whisper his name. But maybe it was only a dream.


	7. The Long Road Home - Dean/Cas/Anna Mob AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas is on the run and he turns to the only people he can trust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started writing this story, posted it to AO3, got discouraged, deleted it, and now I'm posting it here. I'm just happy to give it a new home. There's also a little bit of a Justified flavor to it, because why not.

Cas called the first person he could think of. The phone shook against his ear as the other line rang. He didn't know what he was doing.

“What?” Dean's voice crackled through the phone. The bite of annoyance, the familiar accent, shouldn't comfort Cas as much as it did.

“Dean, they tried to kill me,” Cas said and the images flashed through his mind, the bright pop of gun fire, the police car and the fake cops. His breath sped and for a moment lights flashed before his eyes. He thought he might pass out.

“Who is this? Cas? What's going on?” Cas could hear Dean waking up with every word, every syllable. He remembered Dean in college, in their shared room, the way he had looked during other midnight phone calls, how he would level himself out of bed, the tight set of his shoulders and his sharp movements as he rushed out the door to solve another family problem. “Never mind,” Dean continued before Cas could reply, tone brusque. “Where are you?”

Cas rattled off the name of the random no-tell motel, scuzzy and safe, that he had pulled into, and the number of the room where he sat. Dean was coming. Dean would help.

The line went dead in his hands and he let the phone fall onto the bed. He sat there in the dark, feet planted on the dingy carpet, hands loose in his lap, and wondered what he had done.

~~~

They pealed out of the parking lot, the Impala's wheels squealing against the pavement. Dean's hands gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white. He glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw only the lingering flames from the exploded propane tank. No one was following them. They were safe, for now.

Anna sprawled in shotgun, her arm draped over the back of the bench, eyes fixed out the back window. “What the fuck was that?” she asked the car at large, a hint of panic in her voice.

Dean frowned, eyes twitching from the mirror to the beginning of the early morning rush on Telegraph. “I recognized one of them,” he rasped, voice scraped raw by smoke. “Hired gun. Mostly works for Theo Tonin.” And Dean had shot him, right through the chest, could still see him bleeding out on the asphalt in the thin dawn light.

The color drained out of Anna's face, the soot suddenly a dark contrast against her pale skin. “Cas,” she breathed out, a puff of fear and interrogation. She surged up right and spun around. She reached down and grasped at the figure in the back seat. “Castiel,” she demanded, voice hard, the precise syllables of a lawyer.” What is going on?”

Clothes rustled, springs groaned, and Cas pulled himself upright. He looked even worse in the harsh early sunlight, face pale with dark circles etched under his eyes. His shoulders hunched under his too large coat. Dean couldn't see it in the mirror's limited scope but he knew the blood was still there, caked onto the bottom half of Cas's shirt.

“They made me an offer they thought I couldn't refuse.” Cas replied and only the people in the car would recognize the tremble he held so firmly in check. He swallowed. “I refused.”

Anna choked out half a laugh because of course he had. Anyone with half a lick of sense would've bent over backwards for Tonin and his goons so of course Cas had refused.

“I'm sorry I dragged you into this,” Cas continued, voice almost too quiet to hear. Dean knew without looking that he had lowered his head to stare at hands clenched in his lap. “I didn't know where else to turn.” Who else to trust the unspoken addendum.

“I know,” Anna said, quiet. She reached down and squeezed Cas's hand before turning forward. “So what do we do now?”

“We have to get out of Detroit,” Dean answered, cop voice coming in strong. “Hole up for a little while and figure out our next step.” He met Cas's eyes in the mirror. “Get some sleep. We've got your back.”

Cas nodded, exhaustion lining his face, and leaned back. His eyes slipped shut.

“Hole up, huh?” Anna asked as Cas's breaths evened out and the freeway loomed up ahead.

“Yeap.” Dean's foot hit the gas as he merged onto 96, slotting them into the traffic going west. “And I know just the place.”

~~~

Cas and Dean fooled around some back in their college days. This hadn't been surprising considering Dean's free love approach to going away to school. He'd always heard that college was the time and the place for anything so he'd felt free to do a little bit of everything. He and Cas had ended up in a couple compromising situations when they'd been drunk or needy or that one time when they'd been watching Star Wars on Cas's battered old TV. It was the kind of thing that Dean never really talked about because he wasn't supposed to do that shit with guys (not that that'd stopped him from testing the waters with Victor and Chuck and a bunch of guys up and down his dorm hallway during his sophomore year) and Cas had just taken in stride. He was always willing to put up with Dean's never ending supply of bullshit.

So, yeah, he and Cas had fooled around. And he'd slept with Anna that one time after his dad died and it seemed like everything had turned to shit around him. But it hadn't turned weird until their senior year when he and Cas had had a place off campus. The three of them had circled around each other, one always in the other's orbit. Looking back he could never decide if they'd been incestuous or codependent or just supremely fucked up. He'd clung to them even harder as graduation approached. Cas and Anna had futures ahead of them full of possibility, Cas off to Johns Hopkins, Anna off to University of Chicago Law, they could do whatever they wanted. All Dean had were his father's shoes to fill in the DPD and a brother who didn't want him around anyway.

He'd done the right thing, he'd let them go. And somehow they'd ended up right back here, together, in his dad's old car.

Dean glanced at their sleeping figures as the Impala ate up mile after mile of bumpy asphalt. It figured that they'd all ended up right back here. He sipped at the nasty Mickey D's coffee he'd bought, anything to dull the sharp edges of exhaustion that scraped behind his eyes, as the trees spilled past around them. The exit off of 75 would be coming up soon.

His chest tightened. Maybe the dark days, when it had been just him and the dirty streets of Detroit, were coming back on the people he loved. He'd made choices then that he didn't like to remember, done things that had almost pulled him under. He knew better than most that the past never stayed dead.

Cas mumbled in his sleep, voice deeper than in Dean's memories. His hands tightened around the steering wheel. He'd protect the people he had left.

~~~

The story came spilling out. It was dark in the cabin, more of a shack really, that Dean had led them to. One dim yellow light illuminated Cas's face as he sat, shoulders hunched, and told them all of it, everything.

He told them how it had started, a man bleeding out in the clinic and a woman with dark eyes and a sharp smile. The woman had kissed him, blood still sticky on her fingers, when Cas had saved the man's life.

“I owe you, big time,” she'd said, and disappeared. Bloody instruments and a tray of shrapnel the only sign that anyone had been there at all.

Cas hadn't known that he'd saved the life of someone that Theo Tonin wanted dead. He didn't know anything until Tonin's boys kicked in his apartment door. They'd give him a chance, they said, work for them or end up like all of those people he hadn't been able to help, beaten and bloody and dead on arrival.

They shot the man, his patient, right in front of him, blood dark on the linoleum and spattered on the walls.

“She helped me,” Cas told Dean and Anna, voice flat, detached. “She started a fire, distracted them. I only saw her for a second but she was there.” Anna could see all of the emotions he wasn't expressing in the pinch of his face, the squint of his eyes, could feel his fear and his remorse. Cas had taught himself, long ago, how to bury his feelings, to hide, even from himself. But Anna had known him before life had beat him down, beat them all down. She had known the boy he used to be.

“I ran,” he said. And he was still running. His face dropped into his empty hands.

“Cas.” Anna moved, the gravity of all they had been pulled her down beside him on the couch. “Castiel,” she repeated, voice gentle. She lifted his head and turned it, face bracketed in her hands, eyes locked together. “it's not your fault.”

“It's really not,” Dean emphasized. He sat down on Cas's other side, hand gripping his shoulder. Dean was better at this than Anna remembered. But then, even back then Anna had often wondered if she'd ever known Dean at all. “You did the best you could.”

Cas nodded and closed his red-rimmed eyes. He slumped down into the couch. “It wasn't enough.”

Dean and Anna wrapped their arms around his shoulders. They sat like that, together, silent, through the dark night.

~~~

When Anna was twelve her mother died. It had been cancer, a long, drawn-out battle that took everything from Connie Milton, her strength, her kindness, her sanity, before it finally, finally took her life.

She remembered those last days, the way Mom would sleep and scream, would jump from sweet to furious to terrified, her voice stripped raw from the poison that everyone said could save her life. They were horror days, Anna and her father trapped in that house, love and duty giving way to hatred and despair.

Her mom died quietly, in the night, and Anna had cried by her empty body. She never knew if they were tears of sorrow or relief. She would never forgive herself for how happy she was that her mother was dead.

Anna had learned the hard way that there were battles that were lost before the fight even began; that had to be fought, regardless. Win or lose, she had to fight.

She'd spent every day since then battling everything and everyone around her. She fought tooth and nail to get into U-Michigan, even harder to get into U-Chicago's law school, to make something of her life. She fought lawyers, clients, scumbags of every caliber. Fighting was what she did best. She wasn't sure if she knew how to do anything else.

After Cas's hard, strained confession, they had all fallen asleep on the ratty couch; Dean and Anna the guardians at the ends, Cas safe between them. That safety was an illusion, they all knew it, but it was enough to allow them to fall into sleep.

Anna woke first, morning light golden and green through the new leaves. Her back was stiff, screaming at her for sleeping curled up against the arm, knees tucked tight against her chest. She stretched, her joints popped and grumbled, still upset but loose enough to let her stumble to her feet.

She looked down at Dean and Cas, the way they were curled around each other in sleep. The light limned their faces, washing all of the years away. She'd been jealous of them, once upon a time, their ease, their connection, the way they didn't need anyone else. She'd done some stupid things because of that jealousy. They all had.

She stared at them now, Cas's head propped on Dean's shoulder, moth open around soft snores. Dean's hand rested on Cas's thigh, restraining and possessing. Anna took a deep breath and turned away. Maybe she'd always be jealous, always want what she couldn't have.

She fussed around the kitchen, head muzzy and sore. There wasn't any food, not really, just cans and cans, covered in dust, stuffed in the back of the few cupboards. She did unearth a still-sealed can of ground coffee, some Folgers knock-off, years past its expiration date. It still smelled good, though, when she peeled back the seal; almost like heaven.

She banged the ancient coffee maker into submission and soon dark, hot, fragrant liquid trickled into the cracked carafe. She'd had worse breakfasts.

By the time she'd chipped some sugar out of the old canister and sat down at the rickety table, mug cradled in her hands, there was movement in the front room. A moment later Dean stumbled into the kitchen looking half-alive. He went straight for the pot. Someone, in all of the missing years, had taught him some manners, because he didn't straight and hot, instead taking the time to pour it into a mug and join her at the table. He rolled his shoulders as he sat. None of them were as young as they used to be.

They drank in silence, both waiting. Moments later Cas stalked in, his focused body language at odds with his fly-away hair and blinking eyes. He grabbed the coffee pot and took a long drag straight out of it, always picking up Dean's worst habits. Cas slumped down into the remaining seat, a tippy three-legged stool, and dropped his head into his hands, shoulders slumped, like the air itself was wearing him down.

She looked at them, dust motes fluttering in the air, and knew that it was her turn. They'd been running on adrenaline and fear, sprinting away from what Theo Tonin could do to them. Now it was time to turn around and fight.

Anna put her mug down and looked at Dean, his white knuckles gripping the table, and then at Cas, new lines spreading from his eyes, the face she'd known for her entire life, and knew that this time they needed her as much as she needed them.

“Okay,” she said, voice still morning-rough. “Let's get started.”

~~~

The air in the Impala was thick with tension. Dean drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. He glanced at Anna out of the corner of his eye. She was staring out the windshield at the pasisng trees, a line furrowed into her forehead. He didn't need chit-chat to let him know how annoyed she was.

Cas had categorically refused to go shopping with them. They guy could be worse than a mule when he dug his feet in. Even Dean and Anna combned had't been enough to persuade him.

Of course, Cas had had a point he always did. Cas's face was the dangerous one, the one that the goons would recognize, that would get them shot at in the middle of the K-mart. So he'd refused to go, eyes stony and serious, and then had set his jaw and glared when Anna suggested that she could keep him company. Apparently, stubborn assholes didn't need babysitters.

Nerves prickled across Dean's skin, worry and old memories electric in his veins. He didn't like this. He didn't like any of it. He especially didn't like sitting in the car, stuck next to Anna. He kept getting flashes out of the corner of his eye; red, red hair catching the sunlight, pale skin on the back of her hand, the sharp line of her profile. After that night, when she'd left and everything had fallen apart, he'd never thought he'd see her again. He'd been angry with her, in a dull, sad way, for a long time after that.

He'd made his own mistakes back then, and worse ones since. She and Cas had both been smart getting far, far away from the shitshow that was Dean's life.

They roared by a truck loaded down with giant logs, whole tree trunks, off to the mill, the sun bright in a clear, washed-out blue sky. They could've been on vacation, a couple of college friends on a summer trip, if not for the figurative hellhounds nipping at their heels.

Death was practically at their door, and Dean was still distracted by things that had happened years ago. Even after everything he still came running when they called.

“I'm sorry, you know,” Anna said, her clear voice breaking the cracking silence. She glanced at Dean and then looked back out the window. Dean's hands clenched around the wheel. “No, I don't know,” he gritted out, emotions like gravel in his throat. She sounded like Sammy when she did that, when she started a conversation like it was the first volley in a war.

Instead of sniping back at him, she sighed, shoulders drooping in his peripheral. “I fucked everything up, fucked you, and then I ran off to my big-shot new life.” She said it quickly, voice hard, like ripping off a band-aid. “I was an asshole and I'm sorry.”

“Okay,” he replied. The whipcrack anger dried up, leaving behind the bitter taste of adrenaline and old regrets in the back of his throat. He'd never forgotten how she felt, the way he'd wanted to wrap himself around her and never let her leave.

That last night had started out like a fight, all angry teeth and hard words. But something had shifted, turning a hard fuck into something softer, deeper. They'd fallen asleep wrapped around each other.

She was gone the next morning. Cas was the one who told him that she'd left, gone to Chicago, out of the state and out of their lives. There was something in Cas's eyes when he told him, something like anger or understanding. Dean hadn't tried to decipher it. It didn't matter, Cas was gone soon after that, to Boston and a new life.

Dean was left in Detroit with his mess of a life. He didn't blame them for getting out when they could.

And now here they were, Anna sitting shotgun in his car like all the years between had been a lie, a nightmare, a farce.

Dean took a deep breath, forcing the memories, the feelings away. “Yeah, well, I wan't exactly an angel back then. We all fucked things up.”

Anna laughed, startled, like it surprised her that she could. “Yeah we did. But you didn't deserve that. Neither of you did.” She shook her head. “I'm still sorry and I won't take off again like that, I promise.”

She crossed her heart, deadly serious, like a kid swearing to be best friends for life.

Dean grinned, couldn't help it, old pain lossening in his chest. “Is that promise legally binding, counselor?”

Anna's answering grin was blinding. “Of course it is, detective. But we should pinkie swear, just to be sure.”

Dean threw his head back and laughed. “You're the expert.” He held out his pinkie and they sealed the deal.

Anna kept a hold of his hand as they drove. It didn't magically fix anything, but it was a start.

~~~

Cas cleaned. He cleaned everything. He needed to move, to work, to sweat. He felt trapped in his own skin and guilty, so terribly, terribly guilty. He had done this, had put them all at risk, had dragged two people that he loved into his own hell.

So he cleaned. And sweat. And tried hard, so very, very hard, to not think.

Unfortunately, frustratingly, silencing his mind had never been anywhere near one of his strengths.

There had been a night, sometime deep in the middle of their junior year, when everything had been clear and bright. Midterms had just ended and they were all weightless, a little silly from beer but mostly drunk on the moment, the night, each other. He could still feel Dean's weight behind him as he needlessly showed him, once again, how to make a shot at the pool table, could still hear Anna's bright laugh. 

They'd been so alive back then. Life had cured that, battered them senseless in all of the years since.

He could still feel Dean's lips on his, the softness of Anna's skin, the precipice that they could have jumped off of, if only they'd been brave enough to try.

The cabin door banged open and he jumped, panic bright, and succeeded in banging the back of his head on the shower tile.

“Don't worry, just us!” Dean yelled from the other room and Cas cursed. Moron.

Dean poked his head into the bathroom. He gave Cas that look, the smothered grin and bright eyes that promised that Dean would never, ever stop giving him shit about this exact moment. “Works a little better if you take your clothes off.” He tossed a bar of Dial that Cas caught without thought or fumble. “Soap helps too. Just saying.”

“Amazing, Dean Winchester knows how to take a shower,” Cas replied, voice dry and eyebrow raised.

Dean snorted. “Looks like Castiel Novak, Doctor of Sarcastic Shits, is still taking housecalls. Nice.”

Castiel rolled his eyes and threw the cleaning rag right at Dean's face. He dodged it easily, but it was worth it for the disgusted cat look that crossed his face. “Dude, gross.” He backed out of the doorway. “Come on, we got food. I bet you haven't eaten anything today.”

Cas's stomach groaned loud enough to echo off the tile so he conceded the point with a nod. “I should clean up first.” He could suddenly feel his sweaty clothes, the way his hair was pasted to the back of his neck.

“Well, yeah. You're pretty ripe.” Because Dean would forever be the world's biggest jackass. It was one of his more reliable traits. He pulled out a plastic shopping bag and practically threw it into Cas's arms. “Got you some duds. There should be a towel in there to.”

Cas smiled, soft and fond at the door closing behind Dean's back. Dean's kindness was as steady as the rising sun.

The shower pounded down on him, hard and soothing. As he rubbed soap through his hair he could smell the tantalizing aroma of cooking beef. His friends were, forever, too good to him.

When he walked out of the bathroom, hair wet, new clothes a little too big, he realized that the morning had passed taking a large chunk of the afternoon with it. He could hear Anna and Dean talking in the kitchen, a deep chuckle layered over the sound of rustling cellophane. There had been a time when seeing them together, their chemistry and ease, would open a deep hole in his stomach. Now it only made him smile, a warmth rising up through him. 

He had missed them so much. He had to make this better, keep them safe. He should have never dragged them into his mistakes. But he was so deeply grateful that they were there. He had never deserved them and he never would.

He vowed to himself, right in that fleeting moment, that he would never harm them. He would do what he had to do, regardless of the consequences to himself. He'd been selfish for too long.

He would always, always love them. It was the only truth he had.

~~~

Lunch turned into dinner turned into a fire in the pit out back with the stars a bright tapestry over their heads. The air was turning chill but the fire was warm and the s'mores were even warmer.

Anna grinned as Cas tried to bite into his s'more without getting food all over his face. He failed, of course. There was no way to walk away from fire-roasted marshmallow and melted chocolate without making a complete mess of yourself.

Dean laughed, sprawled in an ancient lawn chair, legs kicked out, half-empty beer bottle dangling from his fingers. “Just embrace it, dude,” he said, teeth flashing in the firelight.

Cas smiled back at him around a mouthful of graham cracker and sugar, eyes so bright that, for a moment, Anna thought she could see the stars reflected in them. He'd always had one foot in a world she could never see.

In that moment they stood on a familiar precipice. One that Anna was finally brave enough to dive off of.

She levered herself up, chair squeaking beneath her. She stood in front of Cas and laid her fingers on his cheek. “Let me help you with that,” she whispered, voice muffled under the nervous beating of her heart. They'd never done this, never taken this step, had always hidden under the cloak of friendship and family and denied anything else that twisted through their veins. But it had always lain there, a spark, an explosion.

She leaned down and kissed him. His lips were sticky with sugar and he tasted like chocolate and wood smoke. His hand cupped the back of her head, deepening the kiss, threading it with the promise of what was to come.

Anna pulled away at the sound of scraping feet. She turned her head to see Dean slowly lifting himself up, the shadow of flames flickering over his face. She knew what he thought, didn't have to ask, but his departure was the last thing she could ever want.

“Dean,” she said, and held her hand out. “Come here.”

And there he came, eyes wide and in that moment so very, very young.She kissed him, too, soft and sweet. She felt his hands stroke over her hair, tasted alcohol and hops on his tongue. The taste of him still made her blood burn. They were incandescent together and always had been.

She stepped away and Cas was there in the place she'd abandoned. He and Dean stared at each other, a long moment accompanied by the strum of insects and the dancing light. And then, in the blink of an eye, they kissed. It was fierce, a dam bursting, emotions and actions finally aligning. This had always been there, waiting for all three of them.

Between heartbeats they made their way into the house, old flannel and stiff new jeans shed in their wake. Cas and Dean grappled at the end of the bed in the master bedroom, two twisting shadows in the starlit dark. Cas growled and shoved Dean onto the bed. Dean lay on the mattress, one leg still trapped in his jeans, chest heaving.

Anna laughed, bright and clear. They were beautiful and ridiculous. She crawled over him and slowly pulled his pants off, lips mouting over newly-bared skin. Dean groaned beneath her, muscles flexing helplessly.

She felt Cas behind her and arched her back against the warm press of his chest. She shivered when he carefully moved her hair, a quick tickle over sensitive skin, and moaned outright as lips latched onto that spot on the back of her neck, sparks flying down her spine.

The came together in laughter and gasps. There were tender touches and hard, fast fucks. Anna had never felt more alive than she did with Cas's hips pounding into her, the wet slap of skin against skin, and Dean's mouth, hard and demanding, devouring her, his cock hard and hot in her hand.

She came with a scream, her boys surrounding her and deep, deep in side of her.

They lay breathless in the aftermath. Dean and Cas bracketed her, arms wrapped around her and each other. Dean kissed her hair as she snuggled back into him, Cas's head a warm, welcome weight on her chest.

They lay quiet and sated in a moment that stretched to eternity.

They fell asleep that way, wrapped around each other for the second night in a row. Finally together, where they were always meant to be.

~~~

Dean woke with a start. The room was still and quiet, Cas and Anna's breaths a familiar symphony. He laid there, heart racing, and wondered what had dragged him out of sleep. Everything seemed so peaceful.

He untangled himself from his bedmates, too many adults in a bed that was just a little too small. His back ached but he didn't really want to get up. He wanted to snuggle back in, to live in that moment, together with them. But something prickled at the back of his mind, a familiar restlessness or maybe a warning.

He slipped from their arms. The floor was cold and he danced a little as he pulled his pants on. He picked his way carefully into the other room, some instinct pushing him to stealth and secrecy.

There was a chill to the air outside. He felt it as he tugged his jacket on, careful to close the door as quietly as possible. It was still outside, quiet, except for the wind rustling through the tree branches. Dean shivered and brushed his hand reassuringly across the gun tucked into the back of his jeans. He knew the way a city breathed and lived and dreamed but out here, in the middle of the forest, anything could happen.

He circled the cabin, restless and alert. He heard it as he came to the final corner, the snick of a lighter, crisp in the silence.

He had his gun out with hardly a thought, safety off and muzzle raised on reflex. He turned the corner and saw a man leaning against the Impala, his skin almost blue in the moonlight, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

“Took you long enough,” the man said, nonplussed, as he blew smoke out of his mouth.

“You have three seconds to move the fuck along,” Dean said, voice deep and muscles tense.

The man chuckled and took another drag. For a second his eyes flashed an almost yellow light as smoke swirled around his face. “And you have three seconds to put that piece down. If Mr. Tonin wanted you dead, there's nothing you and your little friends could have done about it.”

A fist plowed into the side of Dean's face and before he could react he was flat on his back, gun ripped from his hand. He gasped and saw literal stars, the Milky Way a bright band above him, before a dark-haired head invaded his line of sight. Dean knew that sickly smile, he saw it every night in his worst dreams.

“Sloppy, sloppy,” Alastair sing-songed. He stroked his fingers over the blooming bruise on Dean's cheek, smile growing at Dean's involuntary hiss. “Let's hope you haven't forgotten everything I've taught you.”

Dean couldn't breathe. He still had them, thin white scars that circled his whole body, a scalpel's trail. But the worse scars were the ones inside, the memories of his hand on the scalpel's handle, the screams that he had caused, had even enjoyed. Torture was about power, as he well knew from both sides of the knife.

The bastard with the cigarette crouched down beside him. He ground the butt out against Dean's shoulder, the hot coals burning through cloth to flesh. “This is what you're going go do, sonny boy,” he said as he pulled another cigarette out of his pocket and lit it with the flick of his lighter. “You're going to take Mr. Tonin's very generous offer and I won't unleash Al on your fuckbuddies asleep in the cabin over there.”

“Go to hell,” Dean growled, false bravado the only defense he had left.

“Oh, kiddo, we're already there.” The man grinned, teeth flashing. “But you get to decide who we drag down with us.”

Alastair giggled, a ragged sound over the grinding noise of a knife gliding over a whetstone. The devils had already won.

~~~


End file.
